The Castle that was eaten by a Pub! How could this be?

The Blakes were a powerful family in Galway, wealthy merchants, they traded in spices and garum. Garum, if you don’t know, was a kind of a fish sauce that was very popular and sought after since Roman times, and right into medieval times. It tasted a bit like an Asian Oyster sauce or a Worcester sauce, perfect for spicing up a bland dish like salt-fish or salt-beef, the staple diet of the people of Galway in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. However, the Blakes were also known for their ‘sleight of hand’, a tendency to ‘beef’ up their deals with base product, a bit like a wine merchant diluting the expensive ‘vintage’ wine with a less expensive wine. It was said that in the late 1500’s one shipment of garum paste in the Blake’s warehouse was, well, a little off, so, they added some fish-guts to ‘disguise the smell’. Bad mistake, the new ‘garum’ proved laced with botulism and some fifteen Galway residents died as a result of the Blake’s meddling. A widow of one of the dead men put a curse on the Blake family. She cast a spell, saying that the Blake’s name would disappear from Galway, and so it came to pass. Today, the Blake name is extinct in Galway, and the castle, their pride and joy, the HQ for the Blake family, has slowly been eaten by the new owners, Garavans pub. Look up, to the windows above the pub door, on the second and third floors, there you will see the Blake;s castle, in its final throes of being eaten by the modern Garavan’s pub.